Tail Light Bulb Mystery - Wow!

[PhillipE]

What an experience I've just had, and I have no answer at all for it!

Here's what happened: I needed to replace the two bulbs on the right rear for tail and stop lights on my 2001 LeSabre.

Ok, I've done stuff like this before, no problem I thought. The book at the parts store said I needed Sylvania 3057, my owners manual said I needed 3357. Looked at both, and both have the same connector. So I picked up a couple packs of the 3057.

Had to get a deep socket 10mm to remove the 7 nuts and pull the whole tail light assembly - this is just plain nuts, but I guess the engineers need to have a laugh once in a while.

Got in there, and low and behold, the connector on the 3057 is about 3 times too wide to fit! The bulb in there is a tiny little thing. So I took it out and went back to the parts store, and the closest thing that looked like it is a 194, which is an instrument and side marker bulb, but the things fit and work!

What's going on here?! I wonder if a previous owner put in some weird
wiring harness in the rear?

A standing round of applause for anyone who can help me figure out what's going on here.

Thanks!

Phil

[HotZ28]

According to one source, it looks like the tail & stop light use different bulbs. The stop light would use this bulb and the tail light would use this bulb. Other sources show the L3057 for both? BTW, the side markers do use a 194 bulb.